A man walks along the border in Agua Prieta, Mexico, separated from Douglas, Ariz., by a painted fence. Sixty-nine percent of poll respondents in Mexico said their city depends either somewhat or very much on their sister city across the border. In the U.S., that number was even higher, 79 percent.

The Cronkite News-Univision News-Dallas Morning News Border Poll surveyed 1,427 residents in 14 cities along the U.S.-Mexico border to assess attitudes and opinions on important election issues such as the local economy, immigration and border security. Part of ASU’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, Cronkite News is the student-staffed, professionally led news division of Arizona PBS. The border poll was funded by the three media partners and the public through the crowdfunding platform Beacon, which matched the contributions.

Border poll: Part 1

Common ground

Residents who live along the U.S.-Mexico border overwhelmingly prefer bridges over fences and are dead set against building a new wall, according to a Cronkite News-Univision-Dallas Morning News poll.

Outsiders may warn of imminent danger along the U.S.-Mexico border. But the poll found people who live here view themselves as part of a misunderstood community that wants easy mobility for daily commuting, less waiting on international bridge lines and an easier path to U.S. citizenship.

“The border is so mischaracterized,” said Benjamin Andrew Karner, one of the poll respondents, a pastor and native of Baltimore now living in Laredo. “The place is not as crazy or dangerous as people make it out to be. People think it’s the wild, wild West and there are shootouts everywhere. … Not true. The crime here seems to be less than other places I have lived.”

The poll surveyed nearly 1,427 people in May in seven pairs of “sister” U.S. and Mexican cities from California to Texas, Baja California to Tamaulipas. Questions ranged from cross-border relations to trade, immigration, security and quality of life. The poll, conducted by Austin-based Baselice & Associates, has an overall margin of error of 2.6 percentage points.

Video by Courtney Pedroza/Cronkite News

The results reinforce the notion that the border is increasingly moving toward one giant economically integrated, bicultural society. It suggests that economic ties that began under the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, 20 years ago, are affecting life beyond trade, buttressed by the influence of global phenomena such as social media.

The results in 2016 are a significant change from 15 years ago, when the same research firm measured public opinion in many of the same communities. At that time, residents viewed themselves more as separate communities, distant neighbors, marching to their own beat.

A team of Cronkite reporters and photojournalists traveled to several cities along a border region of about 10 million people to gather reaction to the poll’s findings and hear the views of border residents, community leaders and poll respondents.

Among their findings:

■ Residents on both sides describe a sense of community and dependency between sister cities across the border. In Mexico, 69 percent of those polled said they depend on their neighbors across the border for economic survival. In the U.S., the number was 79 percent.

■ Fifty-one percent of those polled on the Mexican side and 54 percent on the U.S. side said they oppose the legalization of marijuana.

■ Results showed significant opposition to building a wall, with 72 percent of respondents on the U.S. side and 86 percent of those interviewed on the Mexican side saying they are opposed.

■ Seventy-seven percent of Mexican respondents and 70 percent of Americans said a wall is not important compared with other issues such as education, jobs and crime.

■ Ninety percent of Mexicans favor a path to U.S. citizenship for unauthorized Mexican immigrants. In the U.S., that number was 82 percent.

A border fence follows the hilly terrain to divide Nogales in Mexico from Nogales, Ariz.

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A wall

Donald Trump’s name was not on any of the poll questions, but the presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s focus on the border is a major election issue and distraction here. The billionaire and what critics call his inflammatory language — threats to build a border wall and finance it with remittance payments to Mexico — loomed large among residents on both sides of the border.

It roused powerful emotions, including bewilderment and frustration. For many, talk of “rapists,” “murderers” “walls” and “drug dealers” is offensive, overblown and an anomaly to reality along the border.

“I have more of a safety concern going to New York City than here. … I think it’s just ridiculous,” said Elizabeth MacTavish, 29, a mother of two young children. “Down at the border, I think there are more problems on the planet and within our own country than a freaking fence.”

Told of the overwhelming opposition in the poll to a new wall, U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-El Paso, wasn’t surprised.

“This wall makes sense if you’re not from here, if you’ve never been here, if you’re scared of Mexico and of Mexicans,” he said. “It seems like a good emotional response to that fear. But when you live here and you know how interconnected we are and you know friends, or have family on both sides of the border, it seems ridiculous at best and, at worst, it seems like something that is shameful and embarrassing.”

Video by Courtney Pedroza/Cronkite News

Trade and the economy

Trade between Mexico and the United States has soared from $80 billion in the late 1990s to more than $500 billion today. That translates to $1.3 billion in cross-border trade daily, or $1 million per minute, according to “The Anatomy of a Relationship,” a study by the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Mexico Institute. An estimated 80 percent of that trade crosses at the U.S.-Mexico land border, with nearly 1 million people crisscrossing daily.

“Twenty years of NAFTA integrated not only the production of things, but the people and communities that make them on both sides of the border,” said Shannon K. O’Neil, author of Two Nations Indivisible, Mexico, the United States, and the Road Ahead.

The U.S. side of the border is made up of four states: two of the nation’s economic and political giants, California and Texas, and Arizona and New Mexico. But those four states face a challenge in convincing the remaining 46 of the importance of trade with their southern neighbor. Along the border, 1 in 4 jobs is generated by trade. Nationwide, more than 6 million jobs are created by trade with Mexico – with states such as Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin and, of course, Texas, among the leaders.

The issue frustrates leaders such as U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., who recently took issue with Trump’s rhetoric and asked: “How can we grow economically if we shut our borders and build 'fortress America'? ... It’s far easier to talk about those who lost out [because of trade] than those who won.”

Jesus Paez, 52, who works in the food service industry in Tijuana, a city revitalized, in part, by Baja cuisine, a vibrant music scene and wines, said: “I cannot say we have good-paying jobs, but at least we have jobs. The United States is no longer the only option. That, for now, is progress.” He makes about $100 per week as a waiter.

Border cities

Neighbors

A plurality of respondents — 45 percent in Mexico and 38 percent in the U.S. — called the people on the other side of the border “neighbors” rather than choosing other descriptions in the survey, including economic competitors, trading partners, criminals or racists.

Asked if they like their neighbors on the other side, the majority of respondents — 79 percent in Mexico and 86 percent in the U.S. — said yes. Despite recent violence, many border residents say they still cross the border, but not as often as before. They cross to visit family, and, depending on the region, again for routine things like shopping, a haircut, dentist visit, attending school or working. And most value their shared sense of community forged by history, blood ties or livelihood.

“I feel I’m connected to my roots,” said Daisy Garcia, 32, in San Diego. “I’m connected to where we come from.”

O’Rourke added, “It says something really beautiful that the border, two countries, two languages, two cultures, at this point become essentially one people.”

U.S. respondents, meanwhile, emphasized the economy and jobs as their main issues. Jobs and the economy were listed among the top three most important issues for 41 percent of U.S. respondents and 40 percent of Mexican respondents.

In Eagle Pass, Calai Hernandez, 35, a teacher and former Dallas resident, is contemplating a move again. She’s part of a brain drain along much of the border of young people who move seeking better opportunity.

“We’re not so different from Dallas or other cities in Texas,” she said. “We want better-paying jobs. We don’t want to move away because this is home, but sometimes we have no choice.”

Some residents on the Mexican side still harbor lingering resentment that during the height of the violence in their communities, many of their U.S. neighbors turned their backs, too, often looking the other way as the death toll climbed.

“El Paso, the rest of the United States, understood too well the violence we faced,” said Monica Ceballo, 33, a casino worker in Ciudad Juarez and poll respondent. “So much that they issued warnings for El Pasoans not to cross over. That still bothers me. Yes, we’re neighbors, but we still have a lot to work out.”

Left: Lines and lines of cars wait to cross the border into El Paso from Ciudad Juarez in Mexico. Right: In the shadow of the International Bridge that connects Eagle Pass, Texas, to Piedras Negras in Mexico, Calai Hernandez (center) watches her son’s soccer team practice at Shelby Park in Eagle Pass.

Top: Lines and lines of cars wait to cross the border into El Paso from Ciudad Juarez in Mexico. Bottom: In the shadow of the International Bridge that connects Eagle Pass, Texas, to Piedras Negras in Mexico, Calai Hernandez (center) watches her son’s soccer team practice at Shelby Park in Eagle Pass.

Issues ignored

Many also expressed frustration that issues important to them are not being discussed at the federal level in either country. The majority of Mexican respondents, 62 percent, and nearly half the U.S. respondents, 47 percent, said the federal government does not understand the needs of the border region.

Sixty-nine percent of respondents in Mexico said their city depends either somewhat or very much on their sister city across the border. In the U.S., that number was even higher, 79 percent.

“Our lifeline is across the border, Mexico,” said Marco Haro, 60, who runs a money exchange house in Nogales, Ariz. “Without Mexicans, we don’t exist. Our life is sucked away.”

Ivan Contreras gets ready for his high school graduation with El Paso and Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, in the background. He will follow a trend and become part of a border brain drain as he moves to California for school.

For now, in politically turbulent times, residents are caught in the harsh spotlight. Talk of fear and invasions comes during historic lows of illegal immigration. A year ago, illegal migration from Mexico was net zero. The vast majority of the 400,000 apprehended by the U.S. last year originated in Central America. That number is a dramatic low compared with the 1.6 million apprehended in 2000.

Ironically, the xenophobic rhetoric, as critics call it, comes as Mexicans, once awash in nationalistic fervor and protectionist policies, become more open to the world, a sentiment tempered by a wariness about the future, and the possibility of new walls.

“If we build a wall,” said Cesar Martinez, 30, of Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas, “we will be alone.”

Continue to Part 2 below

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Border poll: Part 2

Safety first

Security the paramount concern for those on border

Despite gains on security matters in cities along the Mexican border, young Mexican men say they remain the most vulnerable to violence due in part to lack of job opportunities and their government’s ineffective fight against organized crime.

A majority also remains distrustful of their local police and consider security far and away the most important issue, according to a new Cronkite News-Univision-Dallas Morning News poll.

“Without security, there’s nothing, no future,” said Victor Galvan, 25, originally from Juarez and now living in El Paso. He is one of the 1,427 residents who took part in the poll, conducted in May by Austin-based Baselice & Associates, a public research firm. Residents were surveyed both on phone and in person in 14 U.S. and Mexican cities with questions touching on cross-border relations, trade, immigration, quality of life and security.

Overall, security, Mexicans and Americans said, remains the most important issue along the border. Sixty-eight percent of Mexican respondents placed crime and security concerns among their top three most important issues — up 25 percent from 2001. The majority of Mexican males — 70 percent in 2016 vs. 56 percent in 2001, the last time the same firm asked the question — do not believe their government is making progress against organized crime.

The 2001 poll was conducted before Sept. 11, 2001 and the outbreak of the drug war in Mexico. At that time, roughly 40 percent of residents on both sides of the border felt the region had gotten better. When asked the same question this year, less than 20 percent said the region had gotten better, suggesting how complicated life has become on the border since then.

In some communities, such as Matamoros and Nuevo Laredo — both in the troubled state of Tamaulipas — that percentage was even higher, with 86 percent of male respondents in Matamoros saying they see no progress, up from 55 percent in 2001.

Esteban Garza, 24, is a trucker who commutes between Matamoros and Monterrey, an area where cartel groups roam, instilling fear in drivers and residents alike.

“On every road trip,” he said, “I feel like I’m playing a game of Russian roulette. … Do I feel vulnerable? I feel scared. I feel this is a lost war.”

A Ciudad Juarez police officer rides through downtown. In 2015, there were 269 homicides in Juarez, while in 2010 there were approximately 3,000.

Security implications

The findings have big implications for border cities, particularly along the Texas-Mexico border, which are trying to improve their tainted images as they vie for new foreign investment and better-paying jobs.

Told of the survey, Jorge Contreras Fornelli of the Mesa de Seguridad, a public safety committee in Juarez, said, “We’ve made some progress, but we have a long way to go. Security impacts everything, including luring good-paying jobs and keeping our young people believing in a better future. We can only do that by offering better security and better wages.”

Once the epicenter of violence, Juarez has made a remarkable turnaround on security, and sentiments to that effect were expressed by poll respondents.

By all accounts, the city is safer these days, with crime levels falling. Last spring, the city became the first to establish a police certification process in which cops undergo a review process by community members who judge them on several issues, including ethical matters.

Contreras said Juarez, the border region and Mexico paid the ultimate cost in lives lost and the ill effects of an economic downturn. In 2015, violence cost around $134 billion, or 13 percent of Mexico’s gross domestic product.

Over 90,000 workers lost their jobs, or an estimated 30 percent of the workforce, making some workers vulnerable to cartels recruiting hit squads.

Still, Contreras stressed, things have improved in Juarez. Across the entire state, homicides have dropped by 80 percent since 2007. In 2015, there were only 269 homicides in Juarez, while in 2010 there were approximately 3,000. Furthermore, kidnappings have been almost completely eradicated. Kidnappings fell from 130 in 2007 to just one this year.

The takeaway is obvious, he said: “If we have security, we will have more jobs, more good-paying jobs. Corruption is very expensive.”

El Paso, meanwhile, was the polar opposite. From 2008 to 2012, the city, with a population of more than 830,000 people, was deemed the safest U.S. city for its size.

A Border Patrol agent sits on top of a hill to get a better view of the border fence in Nogales, Ariz. While residents on both sides of the border prefer more security, not less, a majority of those polled oppose building a wall.

Law enforcement views

In the poll, Americans were generally content with local law enforcement; Mexicans were not. The poll found that 82 percent of Americans trust their law enforcement officials, compared with 76 percent of Mexicans who do not.

In Juarez, parking attendant Jose Luis Oruquidi, 56, has seen security improvements, but he credits a more active civil society more than he does the work of police.

“I know that any improvement is more a reflection of how far we’ve come as citizens to tolerate less corrupt police,” he said. “Sure I want to credit the cops, but I don’t trust them. I see them and I want to run away.”

Residents on both sides of the border agreed on the question of whether the U.S. should send its soldiers to Mexico to help the government fight drug traffickers, with 44 percent saying yes in Mexico and 43 percent in the United States.

Victor Hugo Martinez, 33, a Juarez cop, understands the apprehensions. He blames his own force for having split the community: “Trust from citizens won’t come overnight. We have to earn that, and that will take years. Paso a paso — one step at a time.”

Residents on both sides of the border prefer more security, not less. Galvan, for instance, is not opposed to more Border Patrol agents on the ground, the presence of U.S. military in Mexico to help in the drug war, or better training for Mexican police officers. Anything and everything, he said — except building a new wall. Security and walls do not coexist, he said.

“A wall is a symbol of discrimination, racism, segregation, not a solution for security, or for reducing violence,” said Galvan, 25. “A wall is for cowards.”

Experts aren’t surprised and say the distinction is key.

“The clear rejection of building a new border wall is not a rejection of border security or the notion of not having walls; it’s something else,” said Christopher Wilson, deputy director of the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Mexico Institute. “If anything, people want security, increased public security on both sides of the border, but especially on the Mexican side. But they don’t want a wall. That’s because they want to be more connected with their neighbors.”

Alfredo Corchado, longtime Mexico Bureau chief at The Dallas Morning News, is co-director of the Borderlands Project at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University. He is currently a scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Mexico Institute.

Journalist Angela Kocherga, co-director of the Borderlands Program at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, contributed to this report.

The Mexico-U.S. Border Survey was conducted by survey research firm Baselice & Associates of Austin on April 29-May 10 with 1,427 interviews: 727 respondents on the Mexico side of the border and 700 respondents in the U.S. The overall margin of error of all 1,427 interviews is +/- 2.6 percent at the .95 confidence level. The margin of error of interviews for Mexican respondents is +/- 3.6; for U.S. interviews, +/- 3.7 percent.

Gender was controlled so that 48-49 percent of interviews in each city were conducted among males and 51-52 percent were conducted among females. Half of the interviews in Mexico were conducted by telephone and half face-to-face. All of the U.S. interviews were conducted in Spanish. In the U.S., 73 percent of the interviews were conducted in Spanish and 27 percent in English. The following city pairings were used: Brownsville, Texas, and Matamoros, Tamaulipas; Laredo, Texas, and Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas; Del Rio, Texas, and Acuna, Coahuila; El Paso, Texas, and Juárez, Chihuahua; Nogales, Ariz., and Nogales, Sonora; Yuma, Ariz., and San Luis, Sonora; and San Ysidro, Calif., and Tijuana, Baja California.

Baselice & Associates also polled residents along the border in 2001, Inc. just months before the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The methodology in both polls was similar, said Mike Baselice, President of the Austin-based firm.

“While people in Mexico and the United States have opinions about the border, this unique survey explores the opinions of people who live along that border,” said Baselice. “We have the benefit of having asked several of the questions in this survey 15 years ago. Therefore, this survey tracks similarities and differences along with the responses to new questions.”